|
Cissie Bentic Medlin was born in 1895 in the Fountain Inn at Falmouth where her father Joseph Medlin was the innkeeper. When he died in 1897 Cisssie's mother Charlotte nee James moved with her daughters to Barry. She had a second hand clothing shop at 26 Holton Road, Barry.
Charlotte's second hand clothing business must have quite successful because an advert appeared in the miscellaneous column of the Barry Dock News most weeks from 6th July 1900 until around 26th April 1912 and is reproduced here.
'Mrs Medlin, 26 Holton Road, Barry Dock will buy all kinds of CAST OFF clothing. Furniture Bought or Exchanged. Established 1884.'
(The 'Established' was added at a later date when other competing adverts appeared alongside Charlotte's.)
Charlotte Medlin's daughter Cissie married Pieter Drost, a Dutchman, in Barry in 1914, and then opened a barber's shop.
Many years later, in the 1980's, Cissie wrote the following recollections, which have been very kindly sent in by her granddaughter Linda Robertson:
I came to Barry in 1900, when Holton Road was muddy and planks of wood were put down to enter the shops. We had a shop at 26 Holton Road, and later at the bottom of the block on spare ground Johnson's opened a portable theatre.
They played drama and had a pantomime in which I took part as a chorus girl. On the other side of the road was a family called Langley. They lived in a caravan and had swings and a coconut shy.
I can remember going over to Barry Island with my stepfather and mother to see the bonfire and roasting of the ox for the Relief of Mafeking. The docks were always full of ships and plenty of foreign people about from them.
Mr Jones had an undertaker's shop in Holton Road and there was Mr John the butcher, Hicks the chemist, Folicks the pawnbroker, Tibbets the grocer and Maypole grocers shop. Horses and carts were used then, and later on Whites ran a bus (open top) to the Island for 3d return.
Later on, a theatre was built in the field next to the old brewery, and on Priory Hill a monastery was built of corrugated iron and monks lived there. The building is still there and is now the Four Lanterns Inn.
Cissie died in 1990 at the grand old age of 95. 
Charlotte Medlin (nee James) standing in the doorway of her second hand clothing shop at 26 Holston Road, Barry, photographed between 1900 and 1912.
| |
